1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a product dispensing device, and more particularly, to a product dispensing device that is applied to a vending machine vending a product such as canned beverage or beverage in a plastic bottle and that appropriately discharges a product stored in a product storage passage.
2. Related Art
In the related art, in a vending machine vending a product such as canned beverage or beverage in a plastic bottle, a product storage rack is disposed in a product storage in a main cabinet which is a main body of the vending machine. The product storage rack includes a product storage passage that extends in an up-and-down direction and a product discharging device that is disposed below the product storage passage.
The product discharging device includes a lower pedal member and an upper pedal member. The lower pedal member and the upper pedal member are linked to an AC solenoid as an actuator via a link member and appropriately advances into and retreats from the product storage passage by supplying power to the AC solenoid.
In such a product discharging device, in a standby state, the upper pedal member is in a state in which the upper pedal member retreats from the product storage passage and the lower pedal member is in a state in which the lower pedal member advances into the product storage passage. Accordingly, the lower pedal member comes in contact with a lowest product stored in the product storage passage to restrain downward movement of the product stored in the product storage passage.
When a product discharge command is issued, the upper pedal member in the product discharging device in a lower part of the product storage passage storing the corresponding product advances into the product storage passage via the link member by supplying power to the AC solenoid and comes in contact with a second lowest product to restrain downward movement of the second lowest product and a product stored above the second lowest product. By supplying power to the AC solenoid, the lower pedal member retreats from the product storage passage and discharges only the lowest product downward, and the lower pedal member advances into the product storage passage by a bias force of a spring when the lowest product passes through the lower pedal member. Thereafter, when the power-supplied state of the AC solenoid is released and power is not supplied thereto, retreat movement of the lower pedal member advanced into the product storage passage is restrained and the upper pedal member is in the state in which the upper pedal member retreats from the product storage passage, whereby the above-mentioned standby state is returned.
In the product storage rack, two product storage passages are generally adjacent to each other in the front-rear direction and thus the product discharging devices respectively applied to the product storage passages are coupled to each other back to back and are disposed in the product storage passages. In the product discharging devices, the AC solenoid as a drive source is required for each of the coupled product discharging devices.
Accordingly, a product dispensing device has been proposed in which product discharging devices from which an AC solenoid has been removed are disposed back to back, a drive source and a cam member are disposed therebetween, and the product discharging devices are driven by driving of the drive source and rotation of the cam member so as to achieve a decrease in manufacturing cost by reducing the number of drive sources (for example, see JP 2749917 B2).